NEW YORK (WOMENSENEWS)
--Fifteen female inmates in
New York prisons have filed
a lawsuit against the state,
claiming that male guards
routinely sexually abused
them--and that authorities
within the state's Department
of Correctional Services ignored
the inmates' complaints.

The 15 inmates
are claiming that their confinement
under these circumstances
violates the constitution's
"cruel and unusual treatment"
clause, says Lisa Freeman,
an attorney with The Legal
Aid Society, a non-profit
legal advocacy organization.

Calls to the
Department of Correctional
Services were not returned.
The Legal Aid Society reports
that there will be a summary
response hearing on April
1st, at which prison authorities
are expected to deny all charges.
The case has been assigned
to U. S. District Judge Allen
G. Schwartz and has been accepted
as a class-action.

The inmates,
some of whom are still in
jail, claim that the guards
were guilty of a host of unwanted
sexual acts, including forcible
rape, sexual intercourse,
anal intercourse, oral sexual
acts, sexual touching, voyeurism,
invasion of personal privacy,
demeaning sexual comments
and intimidation to deter
women prisoners from reporting
such sexual misconduct, according
to court documents. Many of
the 15 plaintiffs in this
case allege that they were
threatened with a transfer
to prisons further away from
loved ones if they spoke out
against an abusive guard.

The lawsuit
seeks an undisclosed amount
of monetary damages for the
plaintiffs and insists upon
a complete overhaul of training
and investigation procedures
utilized in correctional facilities.
Named defendants include supervisors
in the correctional facilities
and at the highest levels
of the state's correction
department.

Inmates Expected
to Provide 'Irrefutable Proof'
of Sexual Misconduct

The crux of
the case against the supervisors
rests on the level of proof
required by correctional services
department from women prisoners
alleging sexual misconduct.
The state has relatively strict
measures in place for disciplining
or removing guards found guilty
of abusing female inmates--and
some are brought up on criminal
charges. Yet it falls upon
the victim to provide irrefutable
proof, such as DNA or a reliable
eyewitness, before authorities
will even begin to investigate
an allegation, the inmates
claim in their lawsuit. It
is these standards, the Legal
Aid attorneys say, that has
left so many women vulnerable
to exploitation.

"As Department
of Correctional Services regulations
exist now, an inmate's word
is not enough to convince
authorities to investigate
allegations of sexual abuse,"
says Dori Lewis, also from
The Legal Aid Society. "Nor
is the word of a second inmate.
A Department of Correctional
Services guard or staff person
has to come forward and corroborate
the story, and you can imagine
how often that happens."

Not very, according
to women who've done time
in the state prison system.
And increasingly, say female
inmates, guards go to extremes
to insure there is no physical
evidence left behind that
could incriminate them.

Such was the
experience of Lucy Amador,
42, now living in Colombia,
where she was deported after
being released from jail a
year ago. She says in a telephone
interview that a sergeant
in the Albion Correctional
Facility in upstate New York
routinely assaulted her while
she served her sentence for
robbery.

"Whenever
he passed me and nobody else
was around he would say disgusting
things to me. Sometimes he'd
say things like 'You must
be a whore; you're Latina'
and other times it was more
direct, about my body,"
she says.

Amador says
that, despite the guard's
threat that she would lose
her privileges if she didn't
keep quiet, she kept track
of frequency of the incidents
and sent detailed letters
to correctional services officials.
She even sent a letter directly
to Governor George Pataki's
office. Nothing came back.

Apparently emboldened,
the sergeant grabbed Amador
and pulled her into an empty
room. There, he pulled down
his pants and forced her to
give him oral sex. When it
was over, he told her to wipe
up the floor and chair to
make sure none of his semen
remained. He also inspected
her hands and mouth to make
sure she wouldn't have any
evidence of the attack.

But Amador's
attacker left a small stain
of semen on her shirt sleeve
and, after much pressure from
prisoner's rights groups,
the stain was tested. Amador
had the necessary physical
evidence to present to the
Department of Correctional
Services. The guard was fired
and brought up on criminal
charges. He served 45 days
in prison and is currently
on probation.

"While
we are pleased that guards
convicted of sexual assault
against female prisoners do
face criminal charges, we
just don't think that's enough
to deal with the magnitude
of the problem," says
the inmate's attorney Freeman.
"It doesn't address the
type of verbal abuse Lucy
suffered and it also raises
the stakes so that guards
are doubly wary of speaking
out against another colleague."

Guards Have
Unlimited Access

Freeman and
Lewis say that male guards
have unlimited access to female
inmates' quarters despite
the known risks associated
with assigning male staff
to female prisons. Male guards
have access to shower facilities,
bathrooms and dormitories.
Amador says guards frequently
strolled through the lavatories
at Albion and seemed to relish
the discomfort they caused
among inmates.

The lawyers
say that three female inmates
in the New York state prison
system became pregnant recently,
not through conjugal visits
but by being forced into non-consensual
sex with male guards, which
Lewis says happens quite often.

"Sometimes
a woman's raped outright,
by force," she says "but
many times she gives in to
stop the bullying and harassment.
And then they're told to keep
quiet or lose privileges."

Ginger Adams
Otis is a correspondent for
Pacifica Radio and frequent
contributor to The Village
Voice.